


500 Words You Should Know #8: Alchemy

by RakishAngle (afterdinnerminx)



Series: Behind the Scenes One Shots (Prompts by Tumblr Re-Watch Discussion) [4]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Dream Sequence, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterdinnerminx/pseuds/RakishAngle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A scene, not missing but not included in Raisins and Almonds:  This is what Jack dreams about while Mac performs chemistry experiments in Saul Michael's apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	500 Words You Should Know #8: Alchemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



al·che·my  
ˈalkəmē (noun)

1\. the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir.

2\. a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination.  
"finding the person who's right for you requires a very subtle alchemy

The setting sun transforms the walls from a deep yellow into ochre. Bunsen burners hiss in a steady breath under the melody of tinkling glass and of screws tightening on steel poles. Two ladies, one a detective and the other a doctor, speak of reagents and compounds while the latter eviscerates chemical rocks into powders. He reclines against the back of the sofa, warmed by the lull female discussion. Detective Inspector Jack Robinson tells himself that he will sit for just a moment. 

He ruminates on their most recent discussion: "I'm only here because I was born with the type of enquiring mind that often gets me into trouble." Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan finishes pulling chemicals from her tan leather bag before passing it to her best friend. Clever eyes survey the scene on the table. There is a wide array of glass equipment, most of it containing liquids of unknown composition and some of it secured to steel posts, used for Saul Michaels' experiments. 

The doctor directs her attention to the DI, who is crossing his arms while paying close attention to pending experiments,"What's your excuse?"

Jack briefly shakes his head and replies, "I thought I was solving a murder, but I'll settle for gold if that's what we come up with."

It is meant as a joke: He will settle for gold. Of course, he will settle. Lately, he seems to settle often. Worse, he is getting used to it. The press of the cushions into his neck and shoulders is a catalyst for his repose and he registers the room growing ever darker.

"Mac! Are those gold flakes forming?" The excitement in Phryne's voice should wake him, yet he is unable to move.

"That can't possibly be correct," he agrees with Mac even though he hasn't seen these gold flakes with his own eyes. Alchemy is a wonderful metaphor but, alas no more possible with modern science than it was centuries ago. If it is true, it must be repeatable. That is the real beauty of the scientific model. Mac appears to be speaking for him. "We should repeat this experiment but, I am out of potassium persulfate. I have some back at the office. I'll go get it. You stay with Sleeping Beauty over there."

Sleeping Beauty? Jack feels his eyes blink open slowly. Phryne drifts to him in full armor, her helmet tucked between a bent elbow and a crooked hip. "It is the latest style, Jack. I think it is well suited for the Victorian Constabulary, don't you?"

"I cannot argue with the sentiment of being well-suited, Miss Fisher." He raises his hands in an attempt to straighten his tie when the fabric disintegrates. His ever-present gray suit is blooming at the lapels into gray, metal plates. His attention is rapt with the transference of tweed into steel. 

Her attire changes as well. Her armor is now a diaphanous toga belted with golden strands, with vines spiraled into bracelets up those arms that extend towards him. 

"I brought you something." A brown paper package appears on the banded metal at his knee. The box is unwrapped to reveal a pink shell of an adult queen conch. He recognizes it as the species L. Gigas. He gathers it into his hands with reverence, admiring the glossy sheen and the rare lip that remains fully intact.

"Whiskey, Jack?" Phryne pours amber fluid from a cut-crystal decanter into the pink fissure of the shell. He brings the shell to his lips and the music of the spheres vibrate throughout his body. She continues to speak to him. "Why would you settle for "just" gold?" 

His arms relax back down as he swallows the medicinal fluid that further warms him. Phryne is how sitting on his right in a tightly wrapped white fluffy towel with her wet fringe sticking to her cheeks and forehead. Both of her knees are bloody with abrasions. In his hands, there is a bowl of clean, cool water with fresh cotton that he uses to tend to her injuries. He blows cool air on her wet injured skin the way his mother taught him to do. His treatment triggers her relaxation and a subsequent outward opening of her thighs, each carrying one of his hands.

His hands follow the swinging of polished metal double doors bringing him into the autopsy room. Dr. Johnson is on the far side of the table and Phryne is on the closer. The corpse has meticulously combed chestnut hair and two shallow moles just underneath the right cheek. He is covered in a sleek fur blanket and has a single small puncture outside of his heart. The detective is pressing her lips together and demonstrating with her hat pin how such an injury might have occurred.

"What happened here?" Dr. Johnson shakes his head and mutters a single word: "Too shameful to consider. After all, the man was married." Phryne looks at Jack compassionately. "Some people get clamped in irons for loving someone. But, there is a worse fate for those who cannot love at all. There is only one logical thing for it."

"To find the murderer?" Jack blinks slowly and watches the towel drop away from her lithe physique. 

"Not at all, Jack. We must bring him back to life." Phryne is looking into his eyes as she lifts the fur blanket just enough to crawl onto the metal table next to him. Her breath flows over his lips.

Two clamps capture him tightly and unexpectedly above his knees. "Wake up, Jack" He opens his eyes to see a fully dressed Miss Fisher walking to the chemical table where Mac is concluding her successful experiment. The fact of it is astounding: synthetic rubber. It is evidence that his brain wraps around quickly and he is intent on keeping his focus on that rather than on the plaid contoured figure standing a mere few feet away.

The heady alchemy of his dream settles and he realizes that he can wait no longer. Tomorrow he must tell her. The day after that the very latest. He needs her to know about Rosie. That he's married. That, despite all that his marriage isn't, it is the only marriage he's got. Maybe, when she hears him, it will save him. For now.


End file.
